While the spackle was drying on the Hawkins Class hull plug I did a bit of work on HMS Cumberland, filling the scores in the deck from my attempt to scribe planks on it 20 years ago. Tamiya modelling putty worked well and the deck is now smooth. This being one of my first fiberglass decks I hadn't used enough gelcoat for effective plank scribing - the blade kept hitting the underlying hard resin and skipping. Fortunately I'd marked less than a fifth of the deck before selling it in 1998. I went through my stock of motors and found some new Mabuchi 380s to replace the old motors. A Camurati pump is ready to install as are brass servo mounts with the throttle and gun controls. Those are modular and can be switched between ships - they were originally in HMS Hood. Ralph Coles dropped buy to get some motors for his Mogami. He's not taking any new hull orders until Mogami's nearly ready for trials (early October?). The mold for the Hawkins Class heavy cruisers should be done in early September; I expect to have a hull to work on shortly thereafter, but also have to resume work on the Russian light cruiser Krasni Krim (aka Profintern), which is ready to have the prop shafts and motors installed.
Hawkins Class heavy cruiser hull (also for light cruiser HMS Effingham after conversion to 6" guns, and convoy/fleet repair ship HMS Vindicative): I had major problems with gelcoat when I made the port half of the Hawkins hull mold, repaired it but didn't think it would last long. Today I got a beautiful cruiser hull out of it but the port side of the mold is useless until repaired again, this time with gelcoat instead of bondo. I plan to build both the heavy and light cruiser versions of the Class eventually, but have to choose which to build first: HMS Effingham (with 6" guns) or the original 7.5" heavy cruiser version. Both are Class 3 models, the Effingham being slightly faster (22 vs 23 sec.).
The Hawkins mold has been repaired again, this time with gelcoat,which took far longer to sand than bondo and resulted in me sanding off most of the skin from my right fingertips! Construction of hull #2 starts this week; I hope to make 3 hulls to sell and the decks for my model before it gets too cold. The Dutch Java Class light cruiser plans have arrived. I need to modify the lines to deepen the hull and get the extra displacement allowed by IRCWCC rules. Plug construction will start in late October with the mold to be made as soon as warm weather returns.
